Discussion

Help- Should I get a 20" range for apartment?

I have a tight space for an oven/range in my new apartment. Although I may be able to squeeze in a 24" range, the 20" range is a much better fit. I'm wondering if anyone has experience using a 20" range and oven. What are your thoughts on using it? I love to cook-- any suggestions for how I could make the smaller oven work?

In my summer cabin I have one, and it works just fine. Oven is great too. Just watch thatyour oven pans aren't too wide for it. You won't have the BTU burner power of a largerestaurant-style stove, but you'll be able to pump a lot of good food out of it. Forge ahead.

I had an O'Keefe and Merritt apartment sized stove when I lived in a place with a really tiny kitchen. I loved it, and it looked great. Depending on where you live, you should be able to find one on craigslist for $150-250 or so. The oven is a little tiny, but works fine for a single baking sheet on each shelf.

The main downside is just not having that extra space in the middle to put stuff on or if you're cooking with big pots on all 4 burners.

I have lived overseas a few times, and always had small gas ranges/ovens. They are just fine. As another post observed, you do need to be sure you have a space to put down hot things as they come out of the oven and you will need to watch the width of the baking sheets and ovenware. But, I cooked everything on those small stoves. We have a fond memory of cooking the Christmas goose in our little oven in England. We had to trim the legs, and put the goose in the roasting pan on the diagonal in order to close the door, but it worked just fine. Turkeys, being shorter than a goose, were absolutely no problem!

Best range/oven I ever had was a 20" gas model in an old apartment. I loved that thing. Go for it. As others have noted, make sure you get appropriately sized ovenware and a good wide trivet to set things down on the counter (the Grundtal model from Ikea is a favorite of mine).